Filed under: Chicago
We went to Chicago for First Communion for Betsy and Sean. It was cold – but we had a good time. We drove in a convoy with Grandma and Grandpa. We go there in time for dinner on Friday night then we took a walk to get ice cream cones at the dairy bar. Everyone’s ice cream looked good except Kate’s – she got some neon green lime yogurt.
The Communion was on Saturday. It was very nice – pretty communiony. Then there was a party back at the Lynch’s house. There were sports in the afternoon – but it was pretty cold so some of us stayed home.
Saturday night the grownups went to Roy’s downtown for dinner. It was really good. What was fun that we saw a big, moveable statue of Mary. I think it was Millennial Madonna or something like that. I added a picture.
Filed under: Chicago
When I was a kid I loved the Museum of Science & Industry. It is great. We went the day after Thanksgiving. We were there when it opened – and we ran to the new toy department. So we had all of the great machines to ourselves. Everyone got a chance to drive the car or be the skier going down the slope.
As soon as it got busy we had to hightail it to the U Boat exhibit, which is what we came to see. Most of the adults have read The Shadow Divers, which is the best book ever even though it’s about submarines.
So we took the tour, which is very cool. The U-Boats were super powerful until the US figured out the code that the Germans were using to communicate with the U-boats. Then they became underwater death traps.
The tour of the U-boat walks you though it’s capture. Although the U-boat is huge, I think they said a city block long, it’s tiny inside. I think they said about 50 soldiers lived on the submarine – and all of them smoked. I can’t even imagine what it smelled like back them.
It was cool to kind of experience the capture. Once the U-boat was spotted it dove deeper into the water – kind of like a free fall and the men had to be silent since noise carries so much farther in the water. It was a cat and mouse chase until the Americans actually took over. Apparently they just stormed the U-boat and were then able to get the Enigma (decoder) machine and tomes of code notes. They didn’t admit to capturing the U-boat because they didn’t want the Germans to know that they had the cheat sheet to their codes. So the men on board were in a POW camp in America.
It was interesting to see the war propaganda. They didn’t just promote shopping as your patriotic duty back then – and that was good to see. They had an amazing visual that showed how many men were killed by U-boats over the years.
It’s also kind of amazing to see how they got the boat to Chicago, where it sat outside for decades and then into the Museum of Science and Industry.
We visited some other rooms in the Museum – like the Christmas trees and some Main Street setup – but the U-boat was the coolest part by far.
The Chicago museum is a little like the museum we visited in London. It’s very cool – but so busy that you can’t handle being there for very long.
Filed under: Chicago
Ok it’s been a month since I last posted. That’s terrible. I’m going to try to bring us to date quickly.
Thanksgiving… We went to Chicago for Thanksgiving. We had a convoy going. Kate made a really nice Thanksgiving dinner. It was warmer in Chicago than Minnesota so it seemed like a good break.
We have some pictures of everyone bagging up lunches to drop off to Katie’s church. They do a nice job there of coming up with projects that everyone can do to contribute to the community. Well, maybe not to the local community of Glenview – but the Greater Chicagoland anyways. Also you’re never too young to learn how to work on an assembly line!
The girls, Betsy, Patrick and I planned to hit the town again and visit the American Girl Doll store. Sadly, poor Kate woke up super sick. Maybe it was the filthy dirty water from Millennial Park the day before.
Patrick took the girls into town. They went to the art museum. I was so jealous. Lily seemed to particularly enjoy American Gothic by Grant Woods. They saw In the Park with George too.
Kate and I hung out at Grandpa’s hotel room. The room was 2-3 times the size of the hotel room we had in London. It’s tough to meet America for comfortable hotels – with swimming pools.
Luckily Kate recovered in time for the American Girls (AG) lunch. The AG lunch is really a site to behold. It’s a 4-course deal. They have high chairs at the table for your dolls.
After AG we went to the Lincoln Zoo to meet up with the rest of the crew.
A good time was had by all and we finished the day off with a fun dinner in Greek Town – starring Saganki!
Filed under: Chicago
We had a great day in downtown Chicago. We took the train. The train in Chicago is kind of double-decker – there are vertically 2 rows of seats. We walked past the Sears Tower. You can see the picture below of everyone at the foot of the Sears Tower and then everyone pointing to the top of the Sears Tower.
We headed to Millennium Park. The famous public art there is The Bean – a mirrored structure shaped like a bean that works a little like a fun house mirror. It’s great.
The kids’ favorite thing was the water display. I have a video below. It’s a two-story (that’s a guess) structure that shows changing faces that eventually spit water at everyone. Then water pours over the structure like
a waterfall.
The water has to be filthy dirty – but that didn’t stop Aine from trying to drink it. I thought Patrick was going to tie her to a tree; every time we turned around she was lapping it up like a dog.
Filed under: Chicago
Last week we flew from Dublin to Chicago. The flight was actually very nice. We went through customs in Dublin – then we sat in a holding pen for 2 hours before our flight. That wasn’t the best but we could buy beer; so it wasn’t the worst either. Many of you know – I am not a good flier.
I have to say the take off was perfect. Twenty minutes in the air Aine asked when we were going to start flying. She didn’t realize we had started moving at all. The best part – we each got a TV/computer in the headrest in front of us. So the kids could watch Dora and I could listen to Led Zeppelin. (Strange rang of options, huh?)
My dad picked us up at O’Hare and we went to Katie’s house to see the cousins. We had Chipotle for dinner – at my request. It was the one food/restaurant I missed most.
We just kind of hung out for the next day or so. The jetlag was very minimal – but it was nice to just hang out. The kids noticed right away how clean Glenview is. I think that’s both a sign of its cleanliness and a side of the Dirty Old Town we didn’t talk about much.
